


riven (short ficlets and other snippets)

by timuzu



Category: League of Legends
Genre: F/F, collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 20:31:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8223902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timuzu/pseuds/timuzu
Summary: "Are you healed or do you only think you’re healed?"I told myselffrom nothingnothing could be taken away.But can you love anyone yet?When I feel safe, I can love.But will you touch anyone?I told myselfif I had nothingthe world couldn’t touch me.-a collection of the various things I've written for Riven in the past year.-





	

PART 1: AFTERMATH 

_**dirt** _

dirt she can never seem to scrub out. no matter how hard she presses the cloth to her skin, chafes the skin until it goes red and hot, submerges herself under shattering cold water and holds her breath until her lungs screamed. and when she crawls out of the water with blue lips and shaking hands, the dirt was still there, specks of brown and black wedged between fingers and the space behind knees.

sometimes riven thinks it’s god’s punishment, along with neverending night terrors and the burning sickness that clung onto her for 5 days and 5 nights after she swam ashore. even after she cleaned the blood and guts off what remained of her sword, treated the wounds and bruises on her body, sent her armour to the depth of sea, the dirt remained.

\-- 

PART 2: CAPTURE

_**bygones** _

Irelia visits often now.

She comes, always, in the first light of morning. The guards perk up as she makes her way down the stone corridor, precise steps ringing off the prison walls; Riven counts 36, it has been 36 steps ever since the first visit.

During her first visit, Riven pretended to be asleep; curled up in the farthest corner away from the doors, face hid amongst uncut dirty hair, bound limbs sprawled carelessly on the ground. Riven had hoped to hear the jingle of keys and the oily creak of the cell doors, and perhaps a rough shove at her shoulders; she could do more with angry kicks than another night of interrogation. But none of that came, there was only the soft whirring of blades and the distant drop of an unchecked tap.

So Riven opened her eyes. 

“Kill me” She said to the silhouette of a body that stood in front of her cell. 

Irelia replied, unblinking. “Why?”

Riven pushed herself up from the floor and rested her back on the wall. She stared at her hands, nails bitten to the flesh and palms as calloused and rough as oak barks; she curled them into fists, and loosened them. She tried to spit, but the dryness of her mouth proved futile. She longed for the touch of her blade, of the crude leather grip biting into her hands. Now all she felt was the unloving flatness of stone and iron cell bars.

“Because I killed your people” It was the same line, delivered again and again to the elders who looked at her with terror and hatred, who backed away as if she were some feral beast, uncaged to destroy the hard-built peace of Ionia. Even when it’s five years after the Noxian invasion, even when Riven was brought to judgement alone, as she raised her arms and kneeled before her captors, said nothing and accepted everything.

When Irelia said nothing, Riven continued: “I killed your people, and I thought - I believed - it was the right things to do. I shed innocent blood, and never questioned.” Her voice dropped to a whisper “I deserve death”.

“We all do”

And with that, Irelia left. Riven counted 36 steps, then she was gone.

\-- 

PART 3: RETURN 

**there is no place for you here**

“Kat, I-” riven reached out, palms spread flat and honest, there was nothing for her to hide behind.

Yet the words are caught in her throat, squeezed painfully between gaps of breath, unable and unwilling. She had thought it would be easy, she had thought.. - thought that seeing her again would wake the dormant courage which she could no longer find. Who would have known that the three words carried so much weight with them, who could have known.

But she needed kat to know, she needed kat to know that it was real. That her apology carried with it the grief and guilt and pain all condensed into three simple words, that she was sorry.

_Sorry for leaving, sorry for dying, sorry for the second chance she should have never gotten._

Kat stood there, wearing an expression riven couldn’t read. Riven wondered if she would wait there, forever, until the ghosts of Riven’s past finally die away and for her to say those words. _W_ _ould you do the same?_ the love in her said yes, the coward in her answered no.

Then Kat began to turn away, abrupt and sharp, Riven could taste anger in that turn. And at that moment Riven knew Kat had loved her all this year, for all of the three years she was gone. “I am sorry.” the words came as naturally as that, each syllable pulling and tugging, until finally rooting Katarina in place. Riven tried again, this time stepping forward, her feet had a mind of its own; “Kat, I’m sorry.”

She could have not anticipate the shunpo or the blade beneath her chin in that split second she stepped forward, but instinctively she let her body go limp, her arms dropped to the side.

“ _Liar_ ”

Riven heard the word minutes after it left Kat’s lips, the meaning unregistered until she fought past the quivering syllable and the awareness that Kat was crying. Yet even after the recognition she had nothing to say in reply, only pressed her neck deeper into the blade. _P_ _ain is not the only way to cope,_ she supposed Karma was right, Karma was always right; but pain was the only way she’s learned to cope, so she did.

\-- 

PART 4: SELF

_**forgive** _

To forgive yourself, is that such a sin? To live and forget, to shed all that you were, to be reborn.   
  
But who will avenge all the blood that was lost, in war, in life, in love. the blood that you helped bleed, the wounds you pierced through their hearts. How can you live in forgiveness when the dead will not, how can you live, knowing that you can never undo all that was done. How can you live, knowing that all that you believed was a lie. How can you live, when you should be dead.   
  
You do not deserve death, in the same way that the ones you cut down deserved to live. Do not haste to lay blame, because all the blames you know are your own.   
  
So look up now, see the horizon stretching beyond, the sky that will collapse upon us one day. To live is not a sin, and death is not a punishment. Shed your skins, be born anew, you will not die here. You will change, and you will forgive. 

 --

**Author's Note:**

> most of these are written while listening to this playlist (http://8tracks.com/noxian/to-live-without-apologies)


End file.
